The Nation's Pulse
Yes, Virginia
There is an unnecessary war on Santa Claus.
When we talk, as we are forced to do every year, about the “war on Christmas,” we generally focus on the efforts of the ACLU and their ilk to continue their assaults on the symbols of the holiday. From coast to coast lawyers are lining up to snatch away the visions of sugarplums that might otherwise dance in the heads of American children.
Of course what adds to the frustration of Christmas-loving Christians is the way in which the celebrations of other faiths, particularly Islam, have gained in exposure; most notably that our last two presidents have seen fit to bend over backwards in recognizing Muslim holidays. While over in the retail world, stores like Best Buy disdain to use the “C” word but take the occasion of Thanksgiving to wish our Muslim brothers a “Happy Eid al-Adha.”
Now the word is out that even Santa Claus is under attack. Some folks on a school board in Massachusetts have compared the use of his image to that of a Swastika. It may have leaked out that the venerable star of stage, screen, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is actually a religious symbol; that his cap represents a bishop’s miter and the tasty candy canes he hands out to the kiddies are patterned after the crosier carried by that holy man.
Most folks of a certain age understand that, at least in this country, Santa is now the means by which parents keep their kids in line and Madison Avenue sells its wares; kind of like the way liberals invent things like Anthropogenic Global Warming. However, much like the child who saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, some folks are beginning to pull on the proverbial beard.
Over one hundred years ago, a sweet, trusting, little girl wrote a letter to a newspaper — when such organs were still deemed trustworthy — seeking to have her doubts about Santa allayed. Now may be just the time for another such missive:
Dear Editor: I am 18 years old. Some of my conservative friends say there is no Santa Claus. But my journalism teacher says, “If you see it on Fox News, it isn’t so.” Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon.
115 West Ninety-Fifth Street
Dear Virginia, your conservative friends are wrong. They have been affected by the propaganda of an anti-statist mindset. They do not believe anything except what they are told by the vast right-wing conspiracy. They think that nothing can be true which is not the product of their almighty pens. In this great country of ours, Virginia, all conservative minds are little as compared with the boundless world of academia about them, as measured by their attempts at grasping the whole of truth and knowledge through something as silly as their so-called religious faith.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as the right to abortion in the Constitution and conservative bias in the media. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were only Fox News and no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no viable windmill energy! There would be no blind faith in the New York Times then, no Dan Rather to make tolerable this bourgeois existence. We should have no reliability in science, except for dull facts and figures. The utopian light with which liberalism fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in Al Gore! You might get a few thousand scientists to suggest that bogus data was invented to support the claims of global warmists, but even if it could not show that temperatures are rising, what would that prove? It’s the same with Santa! Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.
Our most important policy goals are based on things in the world that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn or Barack Obama’s birth certificate? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there! None but cold-hearted conservatives demand this kind of verification of that which we hold sacred.
You may tear apart our agenda to see if any of it is workable or even constitutional, but there is a veil covering the liberal world which neither Rupert Murdoch nor even Sarah Palin can tear apart. Only by dreaming, hoping and community organizing can we maintain the protection of that curtain and all the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all our world there is nothing else so real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Heaven forbid! He lives, and he lives as long as the memory of Dennis Kucinich lives on in the hearts of men. A year from now, Virginia, nay, three years from now, he may continue to make glad the heart of America.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (71) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 12.9.09 @ 6:45AM
When it really was 1968, large gangs of Kids who were hiding out in universities in order to dodge the draft until they could flee to Canada used to daydream about the day when they would be in charge and could spend 24/7 poking sticks in the eye of TheMan, wee-weeing in his trash cans and raining on his parade. In their febrile imaginations they pictured TheMan continuing to pay their bills, of course, and continuing to run the world while TheKids continued to throw sand in the machinery and cash the cheques from home.
Today their dream has come true, but it is a Monkeys Paw Dream: yes, they are able to destroy everything TheMan held dear, but to their great surprise and horror, the cheques from home have ceased to arrive. Their GrabbyBaby offspring are suffering 50% unemployment and the phones ring unanswered in the offices of TheMan ... nobody answers their Tweets or reads their IMs ...
And then one day when they step into the office or onto the trading floor, they realize that they ARE TheMan ... and when they wake up on Christmas Morning there are no Goodies and indeed there is no Tree ... Mommy and Daddy have retired and moved to The Villages and in the Corporate Suites the echoing phones ring on and on ...
And over the door of the factory, the office and the trading floor is a sign that reads:
DO NOT PEE IN THE BED OR CRAP ON THE DINING ROOM TABLE, BECAUSE THE DAY WILL COME WHEN IT WILL ALL BELONG TO YOU.
Alan Brooks| 12.9.09 @ 6:28PM
Even the silliest thing about christmas is more enjoyable than today's trashy anti-culture.
As Appleby pointed out, clueless radicals pooped in their own nest back in the day, and now the nest is being transferred to them. I don't understand economics anymore, but anyone can see what culture is now-- it is an upraised middle finger, the bird is being flipped in neon lights.
The greatest irony is how commercialized the counterculture has become. The whole idea was that they were supposed to offer an alternative to hypercommercialized culture but instead they ended up being even more tasteless-- yet just as commercial-- as the world they rejected. However it wasn't done calculatingly so much as out of frustration, anger, and worst of all that ugliest of uglies, revenge.
Alan Brooks| 12.9.09 @ 6:31PM
BTW, when I write culture, I mean "culture".
Rocco| 12.9.09 @ 7:56AM
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - (Henry VI, Act IV, Scene II).
BTW, no offense intended to Drudgette! This was intended primarily for the Red ACLU types.
Appleby| 12.9.09 @ 8:43AM
That is the most frequently misquoted statement in English literature. If you read the actual soliloqy from which it comes, you will discover that it is in fact spoken by a criminal who is giving a speech in how to succeed in criminality.
Maybe Shakespeare will not help you get a job at Goldman Sachs, but it would certainly enable you to quote trenchantly and appropriately.
Rocco| 12.9.09 @ 10:19AM
Oh, hell, I know that. Many people do take it out of the context, but I did so somewhat humorously. The reason I did pull it out, is because I read the play not long ago, and it stuck in my mind. So, why not have a little fun with it?
BTW, I am pretty much with you on your posts, which represent a good distillation of common sense and a lifetime of experience.
Northern Rebel| 12.9.09 @ 1:12PM
Very astute, and well written, Appleby!
Anybody who has had a teenager that eventually grew up, has seen this process come to fruition.
John II| 12.9.09 @ 3:02PM
Now it's Santa Claus. Of course. Watch for all this to get even worse--much, much worse--as the polls keep plunging and the Lefties sense that their days are numbered.
Confucius say, "Gentlemen rest at ease in adversity; small men, reduced to adversity, grow reckless."
Thank you so much.
Pingback| 12.9.09 @ 7:03PM
The American Spectator : Yes, Virginia Domain on Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Alan Brooks| 12.9.09 @ 7:33PM
Christmas is quite silly, but most of its effluvia has more taste than, say, porn; which is no longer shocking for its sexuality, but for its general unimaginative tastelessness. As rote, stylized as Christmas. One silliness is traded for another.
Secular culture isn't much of an improvement over the religious. People want to be young at heart, however they end up being silly in the head instead.
Tony in Central PA| 12.9.09 @ 9:59PM
Last night, my wife had the local abc affiliate staion on at 8 PM. They were broadcasting " Charlie Brown's Christmas ". I was utterly shocked because during the school Christmas pagent, Linus recited at length from the Gospel of Luke's Nativity story. I imagine there will be a few nasty emails to the station.
Alan Brooks| 12.9.09 @ 11:12PM
That's merely an anomaly. Another few decades you or your descendants will watch Linus (or probably Snoopy) recite from the Gospel of Long Dong Silver.
mgm| 12.9.09 @ 11:54PM
Brooks is a scream. Fabrizio, though, put her her finger on it. Santa can be anything: Obama, Gore, global warming. The Gospels and music mentioning Christ are not in the public lexicon now.
Pingback| 12.10.09 @ 3:29AM
The American Spectator : Yes, Virginia Interest just to Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
nancyser| 12.11.09 @ 1:20AM
i live near VA Beach. The beach is really nice and there's beautiful waves, but there are a little more crimes there.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Enha.....id=3366238
Lidiya | 1.27.10 @ 4:06AM
Is there a Santa Claus in fact, I certainly do not know, but instilled in children that it is not no need to
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